room, a tall, lean figure dressed casually, in shades of brown: chocolate-brown brushed-cotton jeans, a matching brown cashmere polo-neck sweater, and worn over that a golden-tan brushed-suede waistcoat under a dark brown leather flying jacket. It all looked haphazard, thrown on in a moment’s whim, but Saskia knew Domenico was dressed by the best Italian designers; someone had put that look together, charging an arm and a leg for doing so!
He wasn’t looking at her, he was standing in front of a painting by Bellini which Saskia’s group had seen earlier: The Virgin and Child in the Garden. Domenico was staring fixedly at the mother and child, and the pain in his mind made tears sting under her lids.
She hadn’t paused in front of the altarpiece while the tour director was talking about it, she had walked on to the next picture. She hated to see paintings of mothers and babies. She hated even more to feel the anguish Domenico was feeling; it brought back her own, welling up inside her like an inexhaustible fount of tears.
She couldn’t bear it. Deliberately she wrenched herself away from those memories, and began to hurry towards the door. He hadn’t seen her yet; she could escape before he did.
But even while she skimmed a circuit of the room, avoiding him, she couldn’t stop watching him, remembering the tanned and powerful body under his casually elegant clothes, her mouth drying in helpless sensuality. It seemed an eternity since she had touched him, seen him naked, held him in her arms. She would have died to have him just once more.
She was almost at the door, almost out of sight of him, when Domenico’s head turned abruptly, as if a string had jerked it round.
He swung, his eyes leaping straight towards her, and she froze in mid-step, staring back, intensely shocked, hearing her heart thudding, her blood running, her body vibrating in response to a realisation that stunned her.
Domenico hadn’t known she was there behind him. He hadn’t seen her or heard her until now; it had not been one of his five senses that told him she was in the room and it wasn’t simply that he had suddenly sensed she was there.
No. It had never happened before, but just now, for the first time, Domenico had picked up her thoughts, her feelings, as she had so often picked up his. He had felt the passion with which she was watching him, even though he hadn’t known she was there, behind him, and across the room she felt the heat of his answering desire, like flames leaping out when you opened a furnace door.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE didn’t dare think about it too closely. Not now. Like a rabbit Saskia turned tail again to flee, but once more Domenico read her mind and anticipated the move. She hadn’t taken more than two steps when he caught hold of her.
‘Don’t...’ The word broke out of her in a hoarse whisper. She couldn’t think clearly. There was only that one simple thought in her head. Don’t! Behind it pressed all the pain and regret of the past, too complex to be put into words—language couldn’t contain it all, or her mind was too clouded and confused by misery to use any words that might express how she felt.
‘Don’t?’ he repeated in that deep, harsh tone which was so familiar although she hadn’t heard it for two years. ‘Don’t what, Saskia? Don’t ask you any questions? Don’t demand explanations? Don’t reproach you? Don’t be angry? Don’t come too close to you? What mustn’t I do, exactly?’
All of that, she thought, unable to look away from him and unable to answer, either.
‘Well, say something!’ he snarled, bending towards her, and she flinched away. Domenico observed that instinctive recoil, his frown deepening. ‘And stop jumping like that. What are you afraid I might do? Hit you? I don’t hit women, even if they deserve it, so you can stop pretending to be afraid of me.’
‘I’m not pretending!’
The reply was barely audible. He read the movement of her mouth, rather than heard the words, and his own mouth twisted in a cynical smile.
‘Good; it wouldn’t be wise. I think I’ll always know now when you are lying to me.’
Her blue eyes watched him wryly. ‘You always told me I was crazy, believing in any of that stuff!’
He grimaced. ‘Ah, but I’m a little crazy myself, these days, thanks to you.’
‘I’m sorry, Domenico—’ she began, and he interrupted in a savage voice that made her nerves crackle like fireworks.
‘Sorry! My God! Is that all you can say?’
Everyone in the room heard him; Saskia glanced anxiously around but the woman in widow’s black, the clergyman, the student in jeans, with long, untidy hair, and the two men in dark jackets with the watchful, hard faces of detectives, who were witnesses and who stared back at her, were all strangers, none of them belonged to her tour.
Where had the others gone? In the silence that followed Domenico’s outburst she heard the tour guide talking from the connecting room; he must have led the others in there while she was absorbed in watching Domenico. His voice floated clearly out to her.
‘Bellini was strongly influenced by Mantegna, who painted a little picture of St George, the patron saint of England, which we’ll find in the next room we visit. Come along, everyone—we must press on!’
Saskia looked pleadingly at Domenico. ‘I can’t talk here; my friends will come looking for me any minute. I’m not alone, I’m with a party.’
His face darkened with hostility, his voice hard. ‘I know, I saw them last night. You realised I’d seen you last night, didn’t you?’ He paused, staring down into her blue eyes, their dark centres enlarged and glazed with tension. Domenico nodded. ‘Yes, don’t bother to lie. You knew I was there; I felt your reaction. I knew you were going to run away again.’
She angrily glanced at the two bodyguards lurking near the door, still watching them. ‘And I suppose you sent those two to grab me! You still don’t go anywhere without them, I notice!’
His eyes hardened. ‘I’d be a fool if I did. You know that.’
Yes, she knew. Italy was a dangerous country; anyone with money had to protect themselves day and night.
Quietly, he said, ‘Anyway, it was easy to find out that you were part of a group booking and the name of your hotel. I went there this morning, but they claimed not to know where I could find your party. I simply had a gut feeling that I’d find you in the Accademia.’
She drew a sharp breath, turning paler.
So he hadn’t known she would be here! He had located her the way she had located him in the theatre last night. A strange, fierce excitement filled her. What did it mean, though? He had never been able to read her mind during the years when they lived together—why now, after two years apart, was he picking up her thoughts and feelings?
Domenico looked away from her, his hard eyes skimming around the room. ‘Where are they, anyway?’
‘Who?’ She was so absorbed in him that she had forgotten everything else and didn’t know what he was talking about.
He looked down into her eyes. ‘The others in your party.’
‘They must have walked into
